Dr. Carmen Vazquez Lecture

Carmen Vázquez co-founded the Women's Building, became the Executive Director of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and then the Coordinator of Lesbian and Gay Health Services for the San Francisco Department of Public Health. She was also the co-founder and co-chair of Somos Hermanas, a Central American Women's Solidarity Network.

She returned to New York City in 1994 where she has continued her activist work as Director of Public Policy for the LGBT Community Center (1994-2003), as Deputy Director for Empire State Pride Agenda (2003-2007) and in her current post as Coordinator of the LGBT Health and Human Services Unit of the AIDS Institute, New York Department of Health. She is the Coordinator for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Health and Human Services Initiative for New York State. She is also on the advisory board of sexual activist organizations including the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance.

Carmen is giving a lecture on April 7th at 4:30 pm in Griffiths 123 titled: Sex and the People: A Conversation About Sex.

"Sex as a tool for power and control has been with us in the United States since at least when Columbus got lost and hit the shores of “Hispaniola.” The Europeans brought it with them along with their guns and their germs. It is not possible to struggle for liberation and justice without understanding the centrality of state imposed sexual oppression and repression that has been buttressed by religious and cultural stigma for centuries. As Bertolt Brecht said, If you can control a people sexually, you can control them absolutely.

Carmen is also doing a workshop on April 8th in the Global Dialogue Center, 84 Park Street at 4:30 pm titled: Equality vs. Justice.